“This is a big day. We’re going back to Mars,” NASA’s new administrator Jim Bridenstine, who took charge of the agency last month, said in a congratulatory call to the InSight team after launch. “This is an extraordinary mission with a whole host of firsts.” [Launch Photos: See NASA’s InSight Soar Toward Mars]

InSight is the first interplanetary mission ever to launch from the West Coast and NASA’s first Mars surface craft to lift off since the Curiosity rover started its deep-space journey in November 2011.